Chapter 8

We picked at our food in silence.

Sarah kept her head down, and her eyes focused on her food. She was idly playing with her fork, and randomly scraping it across her plate. She did it in the way that people do when they're either extremely bored or extremely tired.

She had hardly touched her meal.

The afternoon had turned overcast, and it was dark in the kitchen, however, neither of us made a move to turn the lights on.

I cleared my throat.

"So tell me about yourself Sarah," I said. I wanted something, anything, to make this girl feel comfortable.

She didn't look up from her food.

"No much to tell really," she said glumly.

I stood up and took both our plates to the sick ... I began to wash them. Sarah quickly stood up.

"Can I wash those?" She asked, with a strange pleading note to her voice.

"No, you sit Sarah ... I'd rather you tell me about yourself," I said. She made a sound of disappointed.

"Yes Mas..." she coughed, "Yes Jonathan." She took a deep breath ... and looked around the room skittishly.

I sighed.

"You could start with what job you do, or perhaps where you go to school?"

She started mumbling something at the table ... Her words were completely inaudible. I felt like a parent asking his teenage daughter how her day was.

It was tedious.

"Sarah, look at me and speak up, I can't hear you."

Sarah raised her head, causing red tresses to fall neatly around her face, haloing her pale perfection in a beautiful sea of auburn.

"I'm model," she said simply.

I nodded, still busy scrubbing dishes.

"I can imagine that, I'm sure you know that you are a very beautiful girl."

Sarah surprised me by blushing a deep shade of pink ... in my experience pretty girls don't blush at being called beautiful ... especially not models ... they should be used to such comments.

"Thank you, Jonathan." She said softly. Her green eyes seemed to sparkle with sincerity ... perhaps we will get along after all.

I racked my brain for more questions. I found myself wanting to know more about my alluring house guest.

"How do you like Britain ... do you live here in Manhattan or are you just visiting?"

Sarah smiled slightly.

"I live here with you now Jonathan."

My belly did an unexpected flip flop.

"Well, yes, for now. But I mean before all this happened ... where did you live?"

Sarah's smile slipped a little. She began playing with her hair, twirling one strand on her finger. It was extremely cute ... I was positive she was doing it unconsciously.

"I lived in an apartment with two other models near Crotona park ... we shared the rent ... and we all worked for the same agency."

I nodded, "But you were born and raised in England?"

She looked away.

"Well, were you?"

She stopped playing with her hair. "Yes, I was born in London."

"Why'd you leave?"

She suddenly looked at me as if I were an idiot. "I got a job offer to be a model here."

I waved my hand, dismissing her statement. "Yes, yes I know that, but I mean you're nineteen. You should be in college."

She started tapping on my wooden kitchen table. "I got into Oxford," she said.

So she was smart and pretty...

"Then why aren't you in Oxford right now?"

She sighed ... acting like such a teenager.

"Because I could model here you wanker..." her breath suddenly caught in her throat, "Sorry for calling you names sir."

This girl seemed to suffer from mood swings.

But still, I could see how a young teenager could throw away prestigious college in order to be paid to wear clothes.

"How'd your parents feel about that?"

Sarah groaned, "None of your business."

I guess I could respect that.

I paused for a second trying to think of a way to bring up what she told me in her office. The term 'sex slave' made me distinctly uncomfortable ... but so far, except for one instance in my office, she didn't seem anything like what I imagined a 'sex slave' was.

Before I could talk she interrupted me.

"How old are you Jonathan?" She was looking at me with distinct curiosity now. I shifted my weight to my other foot, and busied myself loading the dishwasher. My age was a bit of a sore spot for me. Society thought people my age should be in a fraternity, not working for the FBI.

"Twenty four," I said cautiously.

She looked at me with genuine surprise. "I thought you were just well preserved. You act like you're in your mid-thirties."

I gave a little laugh. "No, I guess I'm just boring for my age."

She cocked her head. "You work for the FBI ... you must have gone to college ... so, um ... when did you graduate?

This was the part people realized I was a freak.

"When I was twenty," I replied.

She nodded as if this was normal.

"From what college?"

I almost didn't say it.

"Harvard..." Even to me my voice sounded dejected.

Sarah leaned back in my kitchen chair. It made a creaking noise as pressure was put on the back.

"So you're smart ... that fair to say?"

I nodded miserably.

Sarah looked at me as if she couldn't figure me out ... but what she didn't do was look at me as if I were an alien ... something that was completely different from her and could never be understood. Perhaps that's an exaggeration ... but people treat intelligent people differently. My least favorite phrase in the entire cosmos was...

'Get John to do it, he's smart.'

I eyed Sarah's teenage face for a second longer. All I saw was curiosity, and nothing else ... and it was wonderful.

Tension drained from my body.

I stopped pretending to clean a glass, and sat back down across from her. Sarah was smiling at me.